Patrick mulled this over. So, in June 2004 Kinnear was still in prison but already causing problems for Rupert. So, why did Marcus think that the problems were more recent, starting only a month or so before Rupert’s death. What had changed?
He read on and found a partial answer a couple of pages on:
It turns out he still doesn’t know where I am, a fact for which I give profound thanks. Elaine returned his letters ‘address unknown’ and I’m glad she didn’t have to lie about that. Glad I never let her know where I was. Elaine was always loyal. God alone knows why. I never did anything to deserve it. But the question remains, how long can I breathe easy in the knowledge that he has lost me. A man like Sam does not give up and go away, especially when he feels he has been wronged and, I suppose, from his perspective, he has.
But I would do the same all over again. Indeed I would, though to be truthful, the actions I took have done little to assuage the guilt I still feel.
Who on earth was Elaine? Patrick wondered. He flicked through the remaining pages but there was no reference to her again that he could see from that brief check. And what did Rupert feel guilty about? How might he feel he had done wrong by Kinnear?
Patrick frowned, staring down at the neatly written text. Irritated now, he flicked through the book again, then froze. What? Patrick laid the book open flat on the ground and lifted the pages, then flicked slowly. No, not quite right, with those flick books they had to be flicked properly. Fast.
Not quite sure what he’d seen, he did it again. Earlier, when he’d tried to figure out what bothered him about the book, he had intuited that it was something about the way that the words were written – and he’d been right. Every now and again Rupert had changed the spacing of his entries, added a random letter to a line, or what had at first looked like a date, to the foot of a page. Patrick had taken little notice of the odd misspelling or random annotations; his own writing was full of them. He now realized he had assumed Rupert was having the odd dyslexic moment.
Now, he concluded that wasn’t so. Rupert’s handwriting was elegant and controlled, the letters evenly shaped and fluently written. These tiny additions and alterations, some even in a contrasting pen, some scribbled as though he had just remembered something, meant something. They were deliberate.
Patrick flicked the pages again, trying to see some pattern there. Fumbling in his bag he found a stub of a pencil and a moleskin notebook – Patrick was rarely without the means to draw. He stopped at the first page on which he’d noticed something odd and noted down the capital letter A, where it should have been in the lower case. A little later he wrote down the number 2. Patrick held his breath. His heart raced with excitement. He had no real idea what he had found, but he knew that he was on to something here.
Behind him the cottage door opened. Harry emerged, followed by Mrs Thorpe, the parrot on her shoulder. Nervously, Patrick eyed the parrot, expecting to be assaulted yet again. He was thankful to get back into the car.
‘That woman could talk for England,’ Harry said as they drove away. ‘What was it with you and the parrot?’
Patrick showed his torn sleeve and mauled arm.
‘Oh my goodness. You’d better get something on that.’
‘Did she say anything useful?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Not a thing. You know, I think this is just one big wild goose chase. I’m for going back to Fallowfields and getting on with the ledger.’
‘Suits me,’ Patrick told him. He wondered if he should tell his dad what he’d found out. He hesitated in case Harry should be annoyed that he’d removed the book from the house. After all, it now did seem to be evidence. Besides, he really wanted to find out more first and deliver the revelation in full.
He took the contact list from the glove compartment and skimmed through the addresses, ticking with a pen those they had visited. ‘We may as well make one more call though,’ he said.
‘Oh? Why?’
‘The farm that backs on to Fallowfields. It’s on the list.’
‘Right.’ Harry sounded reluctant. He’d had enough. ‘All right then,’ he agreed. ‘We may as well, but I think that’ll be the last. I hope Naomi and Marcus have had more luck than we have, that’s all.’
The farmyard was reached by a narrow track similar to that at Fallowfields but muddier and even more rutted. The yard itself seemed equally uncared for.
Patrick got out of the car and glanced around, curious as to the arrangement of buildings he had glimpsed through the gap in the hedge. The farmhouse was pebble-dashed and had at some point been whitewashed. Now, the covering was crumbling away from the brick and the finish was grimed and weathered. Small windows gave no real glimpse of the inside.
At right angles stood out-buildings including a brick barn. Patrick guessed they were older than the house and looked better built. Bright sunlight angled down, casting deep shadows at the barn’s end, almost but not quite concealing the outline of some kind of farm machinery, something with wheels and spikes that Patrick could not begin to identify. Patrick glanced back at the barn admiring its high roof and the way it seemed to sit so solidly in the landscape. By contrast the house seemed to squat uncertainly, as if unconfident of its own foundations. Given the choice, he thought, he’d have chosen to live in the barn.
Harry rapped on the door. Flakes of dark-blue paint dropped on to the flagstones. Absently, Patrick poked at them with the toe of his trainer.
No reply.
‘Looks like we’re out of luck again,’ Harry said. He prepared to knock once more as Patrick wandered back into the yard. A boy, about his own age, stared at him from the shadow cast by the barn. Patrick glanced back at his father and then made his way over to the boy.
‘Hi.’
The teenager nodded and glanced warily at Harry, then past him to where there was a narrow path leading to the rear of the house.
He’s scared, Patrick thought. He remembered being told about the teenager who’d come to the shop to find Rupert. Marcus’s description of him could well fit this boy, though, to be fair, he supposed it could fit maybe half the teenage boys Patrick knew.
‘You live here?’ Patrick asked. He was aware of his father behind him, watching. Patrick willed him to stay back. He took a few steps closer to the barn.
‘’Course I live here.’ He glanced nervously back towards the house. ‘You better go,’ he said.
‘We came about Rupert Friedman’s book,’ Harry said. ‘We’re planning to finish it and—’
‘And what’s that got to do with us?’
Patrick jumped, so did Harry, only the boy seemed unsurprised. His eyes flicked past Harry and settled for a moment on the man who had emerged from behind the farmhouse, then he moved back further into the shadow of the barn.
‘Your name was on a list of people who’d helped him with information,’ Harry said to the man. ‘We’re trying to put his notes in order, so we’re checking back through his list of contacts.’
The man snorted. ‘Waste of bloody time,’ he observed. ‘Lucky for ‘im he didn’t have to work for a living.’
Patrick, now watching Harry, saw his father’s shoulders stiffen. Harry could not abide bad manners or slights on people not in a position to defend themselves.
‘I’m sure Mr Friedman worked very hard at his business,’ he said.
‘And he should have learned to mind his own, too.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Harry challenged. ‘Look, I’m quite happy not to talk to you, but your name was on the list of contacts Rupert Friedman made. Perhaps someone else here was Mr Friedman’s informant?’
‘There is no one else here,’ the man growled. ‘Now get yourself off my property.’
Patrick held his breath, sure that his father was about to challenge the assertion and draw attention to the boy. He didn’t think that would be beneficial. Impulsively, he felt in his bag and managed to tear a scrap of paper from his notebook and grab the stub of the pencil. Hoping the
older man wouldn’t see, he scribbled his mobile number on the piece of paper.
The boy was watching him and took a further step back as though afraid Patrick might approach. Patrick glanced back to where the two men faced off then looked at the boy. He crushed the paper in his hand and dropped it into a clump of grass in front of the barn. The boy was watching him. His gaze fell for a mere instant, then met Patrick’s once more.
‘We’re going,’ Harry was saying. ‘And don’t worry, we won’t be back.’
Stiff backed he marched to the car. Patrick followed swiftly. A glance in the wing mirror confirmed that the boy had slipped away, though the man still watched as if making certain they did not change their minds. Patrick wondered if the boy would retrieve the number. He worried that the man had seen.
‘Thoroughly unpleasant fellow,’
Harry at his most pompous made Patrick smile. ‘Back to Fallowfields?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Oh yes. I’m starved.’
‘Did you know,’ Patrick asked, ‘that round here starved used to mean freezing cold as well as hungry?’
‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘It was in Rupert’s notes.’
‘Oh. Well, I’m certainly not cold. It’s a wonder you can stand it in those long sleeves.’
Patrick grinned. He hardly ever uncovered his arms. ‘I just feel naked with that much flesh exposed,’ he said, ‘and, yes, I know that’s weird.’
‘Happy with weird,’ Harry told him contentedly. ‘Perfectly happy with your kind of weird.’
Naomi and Marcus arrived back at Fallowfields just after Patrick and Harry.
Harry had checked the locks and taken a tour round the gardens. ‘No sign of anyone having been here,’ he reported.
‘No, well I expect they’ve reached the conclusion there’s nothing here,’ Marcus complained. ‘At least, not that I’m aware of?’
The question was clearly a leading one and for a moment Patrick thought his dad would give a direct answer. Marcus had still not been told about the laptop or the journals. As Harry opened his mouth to respond, Patrick caught his father’s eye and shook his head.
‘No, nothing useful as yet,’ Harry said. ‘And I can’t say that this morning was very helpful either. Nothing but a wild parrot chase, if you ask me. Come along through, Marcus, we’ll all have a bite to eat before you have to rush off back to the shop.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Marcus sounded faintly put out by the inference that he would have to leave. ‘Well, thank you. Lunch would be welcome, yes.’
Harry led the way into the kitchen, Marcus following on behind. Naomi turned her head. ‘Patrick?’
‘Here.’
‘Ah. Parrot chase?’
‘A woman called Mrs Thorpe and an African Grey,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it in a minute.’
‘In a minute? Oh,’ she said catching on. ‘Something neutral to talk about over lunch, you mean.’
‘I might do.’
Naomi laughed softly. ‘Which means we’ve got something better to discuss when Marcus is safely gone?’
Patrick squeezed her hand in acknowledgement as Marcus himself stuck his head around the door, clearly wondering what was delaying them.
‘Patrick was just telling me about his encounter with a mad woman and a parrot,’ Naomi said.
‘Mad parrot, too,’ Patrick added.
Marcus rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, that’s going to be nothing,’ he said. ‘Not compared to our vicar and uncle what’s-his-name’s treasure buried in the orchard. You know,’ he continued, ushering them into the kitchen, ‘I really don’t understand how Rupert could do all this, listening for hours to other people’s boring little stories, I mean.’
‘Well,’ Naomi said, ‘I think he must have had a certain gift, Marcus. Patrick’s been reading some of his work to me and I’d guess that by the time the stories made their way into one of his books they’d have been Rupertized.’
‘Rupertized!’ Marcus laughed. ‘I like that,’ he said softly and for the first time Patrick looked at him and saw something to like. ‘Yes,’ Marcus went on, ‘I think perhaps Rupe Rupertized his entire little world, and I have to say I think it was a better place for it.’
Twenty-One
Alec had spent a frustrating and tiring afternoon at Colindale, searching the archives for mentions of Kinnear. He had come away with a more complete picture of the man. Kinnear’s career had escalated through the early eighties and he had graduated from committing general mayhem at the behest of others to setting up on his own account.
He’d committed three armed robberies in quick succession, all banks, always with a three-man team. It had been impatience that proved his downfall. Three robberies in as many weeks, and in the same geographical area, had put the banks on high alert. One of Kinnear’s associates had been killed and another wounded during the arrest. Unfortunately, there had been another death. A member of the security team, a man called Fred Ritchie. The news reports called him a ‘have a go hero’, but it was far from clear exactly what he had done. Neither could Alec find a definitive account of who had shot him. Some reports blamed Kinnear, others his dead associate, and yet another suggested he had been caught in the crossfire between the police and the bank robbers.
But it was a name mentioned only once that caught Alec’s eye and which chilled him to the core. A witness to the shooting: a man called Rupert Friedman.
Alec had searched for records of the court case, but found little of use. The trial was only reported in any depth because of the death of Fred Ritchie and by then, almost two years on in the spring of 1982, interest had waned. War in the Falklands knocked just about everything else out of the news and the trial of a couple of armed robbers counted for very little.
Alec returned to his car and made a few calls. The reports had also mentioned the name of the officer in charge of the investigation. It took a little while, and a few favours, but within the hour he had discovered that the officer in charge of the investigation, DS Billy Pierce, had long since retired.
‘I can’t give out his number,’ Alec’s informant, a friend of one of Alec’s acquaintances in the Met, told him, ‘but I can call Bill, see if he’s willing to talk to you.’
Alec agreed and sat back to wait, fighting weariness and wishing he could just drive to a nice hotel and go to sleep.
It was Billy Pierce who called him back. He sounded curious and, Alec thought, slightly wary, but by six fifteen he was knocking on the ex-policeman’s door.
Billy Pierce was greying and almost bald, but he moved with the agility and deliberateness of a much younger man. Alec was tall, but Pierce had a couple of inches on him. His handshake was firm and the grey eyes direct and curious as he invited Alec to come inside.
‘The wife’s away visiting the grandkids,’ he said. ‘Come on through. I’ll make us some tea.’ He led Alec into the kitchen at the rear of the house and indicated he should sit down at the table. ‘We can go into the living room, if you’d rather.’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Alec lowered himself cautiously into the wooden chair. His body ached as though he’d run a marathon in lead boots and been trampled by the rest of the field.
‘You digging into a cold case, or something?’ Pierce asked him.
‘Not exactly, no. It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
Pierce set the kettle to boil and turned to face Alec, arms crossed, leaning comfortably against the counter. ‘Our mutual friend mentioned Sam Kinnear, but didn’t say a lot more. Bit of a blast from the past, I have to say. I’d rather thought he’d be dead by now.’
‘No, definitely alive and still kicking,’ Alec said with feeling. ‘Any particular reason you might think otherwise?’
Pierce shrugged. ‘I suppose because most of them are from back then,’ he said. ‘There was Kinnear and the bloke that got shot on his last bank job … Timkins, I believe the name was. Ivor Holmes who worked door with him, stabbed from what I remember. Clifton someth
ing or other, found in the Thames … I could go on. But you’ll get my point.’
‘And was Kinnear implicated in any of those deaths?’ Alec asked.
Bill Pierce snorted. ‘Maybe, maybe not. All unsolved so far as I know. Kinnear was just a member of the same pack.’
‘I’m interested,’ Alec said, ‘in the job you mentioned. The last bank job he did.’
‘Any particular reason?’
Alec hesitated, wondering how much he should reveal. He decided on nothing, yet. ‘There was a witness. A man called Rupert Friedman. Do you remember him?’
Billy Pierce fixed him with that direct grey gaze. ‘You want to tell me why?’
‘I’d rather hear what you have to say first. If you don’t mind.’
Pierce chuckled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I thought. I thought Friedman was in it up to his neck. It always rankled that I could do nothing to prove it.’
Back at Fallowfields the afternoon had been spent examining the journals and the ledgers and the buried laptop.
Lunch had been a surprisingly happy affair, laughing at the eccentricities of the people they had met that morning and particularly Patrick’s account of the parrot. By tacit agreement neither he nor Harry had spoken of the man and boy at the neighbouring farm and they had all been careful to avoid telling Marcus what they had discovered buried in the meadow. It was as though Patrick’s wariness of Marcus was catching and, though Patrick himself could not fully explain from where that uncertainty came, the others were willing to go along with it, for the time being at least.
Harry had been genuinely impressed by what his son had noted in the journals and Patrick returned to the task after lunch, Naomi at his side as he read extracts and together they tried to work out what the numbers and letters meant. It took time, Patrick thought, to get your eye in, but once you had there were more anomalies than he had first thought. The trouble was, none of them seemed connected and on a few occasions he was uncertain as to whether what he saw was a genuine correction, an unintentional mistake or something Rupert had wished to highlight.
Legacy of Lies Page 12
